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Why should I have a blog?

June 24th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 3 Comments »

[Five reasons for why you should start blogging]

 1. So that you can google yourself? Or if someone else does, you can be found. 

 2. So that you are an identified / established Guru/ Activist/ problem-solver/ critic/ athority in your field. 

 3. So that you can flaunt it in your resume/ interview and negotiate for better pay package.

 OR 3. So that you can keep doing what you “Love to do” without affecting what you “get-paid-to-do”. (How?)

 4. So that you can build a tribe. A network of people who can help you, guide you, encourage you and bring you alternative income sources. 

 5. So that you can lead, help, share, motivate, encourage and serve.  

Create living websites!

June 23rd, 2009 | Biz Blogs, Technical Blogs | 4 Comments »

Many businesses have dying websites. Though it is a grave concern, the frequent updation of their websites is either too tedious or too costly. Most of it is because when they set out to create a website, they didn’t have any long term plan in mind. Anyways, here are a few pointers that can help you create websites that breathe, interact and earn for you! Since you might not make your own website, you can still get better results if you are aware of what you can get. 

 1. Plan ahead: Do not go contented for simple HTML websites with state-of-the-art graphics. Always get an admin interface created. Ask your web designer to enable you to add/edit some part of the text and some of the images via an interface. If it costs a little more, it’s an investment. Try tossing terms like content management, wordpress/joomla to sound IT-aware. 

 2. Feeds: Your website should get regular updates from your blogs, tweets, facebook - as you may like. This makes the website quite alive. 

 3. Gadgets: Add a few dynamic widgets like visits counter, quote of the day(if relevant), Quick-polls, Weather, news and many others or you may even build a custom gadget.

 4. Contacts: Always add a section/page to enlist all the contact details. All the ways in which you will like your visitors to connect with you (includes Twitter, Facebook) Address, emails, phone-numbers, fax. You may also provide a facility where visitor can make you VOIP call, or leave a message. You may include live chats, so that visitors can contact you directly when you or someone in your team is online. 

 5. Security: All the places where you may have to display emails, or where you expect the user to fill a form are susceptible to spam attacks. Ensure mail-hiding and captcha. 

Searching for a job!

June 23rd, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

I am not, as of now. But, have many friends who are. Searching for a job in recession is like carrying a hen, and looking for a restaurant to feed yourself, in a desert. Though it’s costly, restaurant is a convenience. Cooking your own chicken is not easy. You don’t want to get your hands dirty. That’s exactly the difference between looking for a job and setting up a business. Here are a few pointers to myself: If I were to loose the convenience of my restaurant tomorrow.    

1. Float an impressive resume: I will update my resume and make sure it sells itself. Then I will float it in my social and professional networks, and job sites ofcourse. 

2. Dig my network: Dig my network on various online platforms to find out what openings relevant to my skills are available. Also will try to guage what additional skills will help me further. Will connect with and ask for help from people who can. 
 
3. Sharpen my skills: Brush-up my technology skills to prepare for interviews. 

4. Implement long pending business ideas: Spend time on implementing long pending business ideas with available resources. 

5. Join an NGO: Join an NGO and take up work from them, relevant to my skills. Like say they may need to build their websites, or upgrade’em. Also, I might help them use social media, for grwoth. I can offer to provide free services for one day every week.

6. Prepare for higher studies/certifications or do available low cost trainings.
 
7. Provide training to freshers free or low cost: Taking classes is fun. You can get paid for what people want to learn and you can use it to teach what you like to teach.  

I don’t know how effective this list would be, haven’t tried yet. But I am sure it would be a lot of value addition to myself, and best use of the time I’d have. 

UPDATE: found some innovative ways to search jobs @ CareerTiger

Ideal length of a blog

June 10th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

[What is the Ideal length of a blog?]

A new blogger asked this question on Triiibes, a closed social networking platform for leaders and marketers around the world, hosted by Seth Godin. After answering her there, it appeared to me like an important issue for every blogger. Here is my take :

Brevity is always appreciated. A full roasted turkey looks good on the table but is difficult to consume. It’s always great to cut it into consumable pieces before serving. Each post is either a story (rants/reviews) or an answer to some question. Over the time I have learnt to restrict my blog posts to be short, crisp and easy to absorb pieces of info/rant. If it’s a large report I split it into a series of posts. And link them to each other. 

So here are the few things I keep in mind: 

 1. Short post - just elaborate enough (take this post as an example). Around 250 words are usually enough. 
 2. Single thought - too many things complicate and confuse
 3. Simple language - If it’s not a poetry blog, don’t be poetic.
 4. Clear - Jotting down information as bullets keeps it short and clear. 

This is mostly for non-literary blogs. However, you can derive some pointers and use it for literary blogs (poems, stories, articles) as well. 

Launching a new blog -Part 5

June 5th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

[Introducing the blog]

Emails: I am sure you have friends who have email-ids. Why not write a simple mail to family and friends and introduce it directly. It’s the best and surest way to get going. If you are not sure how to write an effective mail, I can do it for you absolutely free. 

Links: Add links to your blog in all your online profiles - Facebook, Orkut,LinkedIn, Ecademy, Hi-Five, Everywhere you can.

Personal Ads: There are plenty of places you can advertise for free. But for that you essentially need to get addictive.    

Comment: Copyblogger suggests that exquisite and meaningful comments may really help you get relevant traffic. 

Surveys: Surveys can be used to introduce your blog, get feedback and decide the future strategy/contents for your blog. Here is a brief on how you can use survey as a marketing strategy. 

Socializing: You can participate in a lot of communities relevant to your blog and be an active member there. By being an active member, I mean you have to participate in a helpful and non-promotional way. Try appreciating others work, give honest feebacks, help people solve problems, reach solutions. That way you increase your credibility and popularity on www and ofcourse traffic to your blogs. 

SEO: A lot of good content on the internet miss the eyes of search engines because they are not search-engine friendly. Now SEO is a big topic in itself, but I’d like you to understand the basic of it. Basically you should include keywords (and keyphrases) in your content which are likely to be searched by your readers. Lets say you have an automobile related blog. If you put ” yamaha v/s honda”, or “Yamaha is better than honda because”, or “Comparison yamaha and honda” in your article about yamaha and honda motor bikes you are more likely to appear is search results. Think about, what should a reader search for when your content should appear and mould your content accordingly.   

This is most likely the last part of this series on Launching a new blog. I’d love to know if these steps were helpful. And also, if I can help you any further in launching your blogs. You can subscribe on email for the latest updates.   

Launching a new blog - Part 4

June 3rd, 2009 | Biz Blogs | No Comments »

[Aid your readers]

Your readers might want to come back to your blog later. Can you facilitate that? What if they like to keep themselves upto date with your latest postings. Your blog should always display the gadgets for e-subscription. You can choose gadgets for subscribing on email, subscribing through RSS feeds, add to iGoogle and other feed readers. Most of them would know how to bookmark your blog on the browser, but if you can still provide a small gadget for it, you have better chances of getting frequent visits. You should also find ways to lure your readers to subscribe. See how copyblogger never misses an opportunity to get your subscription. 

Also, among the enthusiastic lot, there is always a deep urge to share things. As soon as they find an interesting thing, they ‘d want share it with their group. If you can add a facility to email, tweet, IM, Digg, Stumbleit you’d be a lot better. 

Having listed all the readership Aids, I’d like to stress on the fact that you should not overdo it. You should carefully select which sharing instruments go best with your needs And more importantly which will be appreciated by your readers. There are plenty of free gadgets available for you to leverage. 

Launching a new blog - Part 3

June 2nd, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 2 Comments »

[Establishing credibility]

Readers are always in a hurry. They are like a typical male sitting in front of the Television with a remote control in hand. You give them a slight distraction and they’ll change the channel. If they dont find you credible enough, in the first few seconds, they’ll almost certainly move on.

Again if you consider your blog as a shop, what do you think establishes your credibility instantly for a new reader? The crowd of customers at your shop - Your readership. If your blog shows a huge number of readers, the new reader will instinctively try to spend a little more time on your blog to figure out why? And that’s when you can have him. Just like if you are new to the market, you’d almost always like to check out the shop with a large crowd of customers. Even if it doesn’t sell what you are looking for. There is some hormone in human body that gives them an attraction towards crowd. 

Three things that display the virtual crowd at your blog are visit counters, visitor locators and comments.      

So you need to establish credibility for a new reader to hook on. But since you’ve just started, you obviously don’t have many readers. You can still keep a readership counter at some corner of your blog. Not at the top, Not in the front row. Keep it at the bottom, or side bottom. Be sure to add it as soon as you start your blog. By the time you reach a good quantity of posts your readership would have silently grown to a few hundreds. And thats when you can display it at a prime location of your blog and showcase it. 

There is another excellent utility that shows location of your readers on a world map. Now when a new reader finds half the world visiting your blog, it creates an instant impression.

And one of the most important and most meaningful thing in blogs is reader’s comments. Make sure its extremely easy for readers to comment on your blog. Many a times, I have found comments to be more useful then the original posts. But reaching a decent quantity and quality of comments will certainly take a lot of time and effort. You have to encourage your readers to comment. And one of the good way to encourage that is to comment on other blogs. If you comment on my posts, I’d almost certainly follow the link to reach your blog. Similarly, if your comment is really cool, my other readers might as well follow the link. Start Now! Comment on this post, it really takes only a minute.         

Launching a new blog - Part 2

June 1st, 2009 | Biz Blogs | No Comments »

[Overstuff your blogs]

The problem with new bloggers is mostly not about the quality, but about the quantity. Remember a reader is like a client visiting a shop. He wants to see it stuffed, he wants to see variety, he wants to see crowd of other costumers. Which shop gathers your attention in the market? The one that is sparsely occupied with stuff or the one that is completely overstuffed?

Nothing is more disappointing for a reader then having to close your blog because there’s nothing left to read. And if you are an irregular blogger, you increase the chances of loosing the reader even more. If you are interesting, you have to be addictive. Consider a new reader finds your blog extremely interesting and visits again tomorrow and finds nothing new. Will he be delighted?

Imagine if popular TV series Friends or How I met your mother were screened irregularily, will they be able to reach this level of popularity? So there are two ways, either one has to be a regular blogger, OR has to create a huge pile before going to the readers OR both.

So overstuff your blog shop before opening it up to customers. How many is enough? I’d say when you have 100 posts, a new reader will certainly never have to quit because he is finished reading. But practically it is good to have at least 20 posts before you start worrying about readership at all.

Launching a new blog - Part 1

June 1st, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments »

[How to get readers to my blog?]

Every week there is a new person asking this question in online forums. Perhaps they are dazzled by the popularity of a few online authors, bloggers & marketers. And want to reach same levels of popularity fast. I already explained some essential steps to get started with your self-branding excercise. But there is one thing everyone should keep in mind. 

 What is in it for readers?

Sure your blog is interesting. Everyone finds their stuff interesting enough, but does it cater to the real problems of their readers. I find many interesting blogs everyday. But the ones I hook on to are certainly the ones that solve my current problems, and look like potentially solving my future problems as well. 

 Choose your readers!

Who do you want to read your blog? You have to carefully choose your readers and identify their requirements. OR you may carefully choose things that you wish to write and then focus on how you can erach teh interested lot. Many a times bloggers are confused about these two very different things. Either you write for some “specific” lot of readers OR you have to find the specific lot interested in your thoughts.

So if you want a certain category of readers, think about their requirements.

If you rather want to get readers who just like ‘your’ stuff, focus on finding the right people. It’s apparently gonna take more time.  

Become a Champion!

May 27th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | No Comments »

[Using the Power of IT]

I concluded in the survey analysis post that large group of IT Professionals are just IT-Aware, or IT-Literate. They are far from using the power of IT for their own benefit. Here is a list of things you can do to upgrade yourself from being IT-Aware to IT-Champ. 

Start using internet: For every mundane activity you do you might get a better tool on the internet. No I am not talking about brushing, excercising and sex. I am suggesting activities like 
 + Managing your expenses and savings, fancy name - Personal Finance.  
 + Managing your Tasks - Todo lists, reminders, birthday calenders etc. 
 + Managing your Documents: Resume, monthly paychecks and other documents in free online repositories. Manage your clients, contacts, relationships, discussions and  meetings. 
 + Manage you time: Learn using a GTD (Getting Things Done) tool and get things done.  

Cultivate eHabits: Keep yourself up-to-date. Subscribe a few blog feeds from topics/technologies of your choice, area of work or area of interest. If you are not sure about this, want to know good blogs, ask me in comments. 

Be virtually social: Join different networking forums for different requirements. 
 + Join orkut/facebook and connect with friends. 
 + Keep publishing your status and Ideas at Twitter
 + Join LinkedIn and Ecademy for professional networking. 

And then there are many others focussed on your need or area of interest. Find out and Network with relevant people. Join relevant forums. Ask questions, answer other’s queries, Start discussions, participate in ongoing ones. 

Start sharing: Keep a blog where you can share your ideas, suggestions, complaints or general rants. You can choose blog, blogger, wordpress or typepad. 

An extremely nice way to integrate all these and get them on one page is iGoogle. 

So I have stated 18 links out of which atleast 10 links should be essentially a part of your life soon. There is so much of free technical power to leverage. No decently intelligent professional should waste such an opportunity.  Start today, become a champion.  

PS: Yes, I use all of them. And No, none of them is paying me. 
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